Toucy Raid

The Toucy Raid (22 July 1944) was a joint Special Air Service-French Resistance operation of World War II. The British sent commandos to help the Resistance in taking out Flak 88 guns in Burgundy, and the raid was a success.

Raid
On the night of 21 July 1944, Major Gerald Ingram's Special Air Service unit left the Tarrant-Rushton Airfield in Dorset, England for a night raid against German anti-air defenses in Toucy, far behind enemy lines in the Burgundy region of central France. Their plane was ironically shot down by the same Flak 88s near the drop zone; the SAS team succeeded in jumping in time, but one of them was killed by a German soldier upon landing. However, the French Resistance under Pierre LaRoche arrived and assisted the other British commandos in escaping. Together, they launched an assault against a German-held manor house before entering a dropped British jeep, "Vera", behind the house. The British and French fought their way to the rendezvous point with Isabelle DuFontaine and the Resistance, and she informed them that the German gunners were using a manor house as their barracks, while they also had Flak guns. The SAS and Maquis fighters proceeed to storm the manor house and rescue Marcel LeMonde from the Germans in the cellar, and they then proceeded to storm the Flak 88 battery and plant charges, destroying the German air defense. With the German Flak guns destroyed and many of the Wehrmacht troops dead, the Allies won a victory against the Germans behind their lines.